Institute of Theatre and Opera – Page 6

Cinema Series Lyda Borelli: Film Diva. A showing of the restored version of La memoria dell’altro with live music

Cinema Series Lyda Borelli: Film Diva. A showing of the restored version of La memoria dell’altro with live music

The last event in the Lyda Borelli film series will be held in the Aula Magna of the Ateneo Veneto on Friday, 10 November 10 at 8.30 pm: a screening of the little-known film La memoria dell’altro (The Memory of the Other), directed by Alberto Degli Abbati in 1913. Restored for the occasion by the Centro Studi Sperimentali di Cinematografia, Rome, with the support of Lyda Borelli’s heirs, the film will be accompanied by live music played by pianist Cinzia Gangarella, and preceded by an introductory conference involving Maria Ida Biggi, director of the Institute Theatre and Opera, Daniela Currò, conservator in the National Film Sector of the Fondazione di Studi Sperimentali di Cinematografia, Rome, and Angela Dalle Vacche, Professor of Film History at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta.
Following a successful first film role in Everlasting Love, Lyda Borelli once again worked with Mario Bonnard and Vittorio Rossi Pianelli in La memoria dell’altro (The Memory of the Other), playing a young pilot called Lyda. With some stunning Venetian exteriors, this film was also a great success mainly due to the type of woman played by Borelli, who was similar to the image that the actress had built up of her own public persona. Critics at the time emphasized the affinities between Lyda the pilot in the film and the Lyda Borelli the diva, suggesting that scriptwriter Baroness De Rege had actually been inspired for character by the emancipated actress with a penchant for flying and fast cars, but also a seductive dancer and femme fatale.
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Free admission while seats last

Picture:
Lyda Borelli in La memoria dell’altro, 1913

Exhibition Eleonora Duse and Arrigo Boito

Part of the celebrations for the centenary of the death of Arrigo Boito (1842-1918), this exhibition reconstructs the artistic and personal relationship of Eleonora Duse with the famous Veneto librettist, poet and composer – a man of great learning who was for long a guide for the actress and her theatre. The Institute of Theatre and Opera is thus showing to the public the Boito documents acquired through the Carandini Albertini, Sister Mary Mark and Nardi donations: these materials including fascinating items, such as autograph drafts and sketches for his opera Nerone, original photographs, the captivating correspondence consisting of letters that the two exchanged from 1884 to 1890, and the scripts of the Shakespearean plays Antony and Cleopatra, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth, which Boito translated and adapted with Eleonora’s specific acting skills in mind. There is also a portrait of the actress by the German painter Franz von Lembach, which Boito had always kept at his bedside: on his death, in keeping with his will, it was returned to Duse.
Opened to the public in 2011, “Eleonora Duse’s Room” was created with the idea of making accessible the valuable heritage of the Duse Archives to anyone interested.
The original materials from the archive are exhibited on rotation in a series of temporary exhibitions aimed at exploring one or more aspects of the actress’s life and art.

Arrigo Boito, about 1895

Presentation The Giovanni Poli Archive

Following the recent acquisition of the personal archive of the playwright and stage director Giovanni Poli (1917-1979), the Institute of Theatre and Opera has organised a public presentation of the donation. Presented to the Fondazione Giorgio Cini at the behest of his sons Stefano and Massimo, the Giovanni Poli Archive consists of a great variety of documents, many of them unpublished, including theoretical writings, notes and director’s notes, essays on theatre, playbills and posters, stage photos, videos and press releases.
The archive is thus of key importance in reconstructing and studying the theatre of the Veneto director. Poli was the founder of the Ca’ Foscari University Theatre and the Teatro a l’Avogaria. A prominent
personality on the Venetian theatrical scene in the second postwar period, his work, strongly rooted in the Veneto, was focused on reviving the Venetian theatrical tradition but constantly bearing in mind contemporary developments. For the presentation, a selection of materials from the archive will be on show in the Sala Barbantini in the Fondazione Cini: scripts and director’s notes, sketches, designs, playbills, posters, stage photos and press releases. They will document the heart of an archive of great importance for the Institute and for its role in developing cultural relations with the local Veneto area.

Books at San Giorgio

Books at San Giorgio, a series of meetings presenting the latest publications concerning or
published by the Fondazione Cini, will resume this autumn.
At the first meeting, on 4 October, the featured book is La giovinezza di Tintoretto, containing
the proceedings of the conference on Jacopo Tintoretto, the great Venetian painter considered
to be one of the most original Mannerist artists, ahead of the fifth centenary of his birth.

The second date, October 10, will be devoted to the presentation of La scena di Mariano Fortuny.
Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi, edited by Maria Ida Biggi, Claudio Franzini, Cristina
Grazioli and Marzia Maino. The book contains the proceedings of the conference on Mariano
Fortuny y Madrazo’s theatre work and poetics, held in Padua and Venice in November 2013.
Scholars and experts explore the work of the multi-faceted Spanish artist, such as his experiments
with stage lighting and stagecraft, and his relations with the great early 20th-century
directors and leading figures in the fields of dance, the visual arts, music and photography.

The last date, on 18 October, will see the launch of two online books by the Institute of Music:
Variazioni in sviluppo. I pensieri di Giovanni Morelli verso il futuro, edited by Giada Viviani,
and Teatro di avanguardia e composizione sperimentale per la scena in Italia: 1950-1975, edited
by Gianmario Borio, Giordano Ferrari and Daniela Tortora.

Il Teatro di Lyda Borelli

Il Teatro di Lyda Borelli
Edited by Maria Ida Biggi and Marianna Zannoni
Fratelli Alinari, Florence 2017

This book is the first monograph on the actress Lyda Borelli’s theatrical career, from her youthful beginnings until she retired in 1918. The result of lengthy research work, the essays by Maria Ida Biggi, Marianna Zannoni and Maria Dolores Cassano enable us to retrace the brilliant career of a captivating
actress, one of the first female theatre company leaders in Italy, loved and celebrated by the public and the press, even before her name was indistinguishably linked to the image of a silent-film diva who entered history.
Lyda Borelli perfectly embodies the modern woman of the early 20th century: her image as being emancipated, also constructed through the female characters that she played on the stage, contributed to creating the icon of the belle époque diva. Often the subject of life-style articles in the society columns
of periodicals and newspapers, she caught the public eye for the sophistication of her toilettes. A forerunner of incipient modernity, she was also the muse of contemporary Futurist thinkers. Letters, newspaper articles, first-hand accounts and many unpublished documents have enabled the authors to analyse Lyda Borelli’s stage career in relation to the cultural and social context of her time, in a hitherto unpublished, unique story.

Exhibition Lyda Borelli: A Leading Lady of the 20th Century

This exhibition is a key part of the series of events aimed at reviving interest in the actress Lyda Borelli (1887-1959). Entitled Lyda Borelli: A Leading Lady of the 20th Century, the show has been curated by Maria Ida Biggi, the director of the Fondazione Cini Institute of Theatre and Opera, and installed in the elegant setting of the house-museum of the Palazzo Cini at San Vio, now open again thanks to a partnership with Assicurazioni Generali.

Through a remarkable series of photographs and rare archive documents, the exhibition tells the story of one of the most fascinating Italian stars of the early 20th century, her great achievements on the stage in Italy and worldwide, and her enormous success in cinema. Daughter of the actors Napoleone Borelli and Cesira Banti, Lyda was already often on the stage as child, and she officially debuted alongside Virginia Reiter in 1901. In 1903, she joined Virgilio Talli’s company and, until she retired in 1918, she worked with the greatest actors of the day and was the greatly acclaimed leading lady in plays by writers such as Gabriele D’Annunzio, Oscar Wilde and Sem Benelli. Her image as a theatre actress paved the way to her status as an Art Nouveau icon of style and gracefulness created by her subsequent film roles that were enormously popular with wider audiences.

The exhibition project, organised in agreement with Lyda Borelli’s heirs, has been produced in collaboration with institutions such as the SIAE-Biblioteca e Raccolta Teatrale del Burcardo, Rome; Fratelli Alinari. Fondazione per la Storia della Fotografia, Florence; ICCD – Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione, Rome; Biblioteca e Archivio storico di Casa Lyda Borelli, Bologna; and the Fondazione Cineteca Italiana, Milan.

International Conference. Monteverdi’s Venetian Operas: New Ideas for Interpretation and Mise en Scène

16 June 2017
Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Island of San Giorgio Maggiore

17 June 2017
Teatro La Fenice, Sale Apollinee

Part of the celebrations of 450 years since the birth of Claudio Monteverdi, this conference has been organised by the Institute of Theatre and Opera and the Institute of Music in collaboration with the Teatro La Fenice. Coordinated by Ellen Rosand and Stefano La Via, the event will bring together scholars and performers with diverse skills and backgrounds. The intense two-day conference is divided into three sessions. The first two sessions ‒ entitled L’Incoronazione di Poppea: from Busenello to Monteverdi and Poppea vs. Ulisse: keys for interpretation and performance ‒ will held at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini on 16 June, while the last session, History and criticism of stage productions, will take place in the Sale Apollinee of the Teatro La Fenice on 17 June.

After the conference and a performance of the “Monteverdi Trilogy”, conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner will meet Tim Carter and the other speakers. Among those invited to take part are Guillaume Bernardi, Mauro Calcagno, Jane Glover, Wendy Heller, Mario Infelise, Jean-François Lattarico, Maria Martino, Magnus Schneider, Hendrik Schultze, Anna Tedesco and Nicola Usula.

In concomitance with the conference at the Teatro La Fenice, Sir John Eliot Gardiner at the head of the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras will stage the Monteverdi Trilogy: Orfeo, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria and L’incoronazione di Poppea. For its world première in Venice, this production will have a cast of young singers selected by Gardiner from among the students who came from Italy, Britain and France to take part in a series of preparatory workshops for the operas entitled the Accademia Monteverdiana. The workshops were held at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in April 2016 and organised by the Institute for theatre and Opera.

Download the program

Image:

Francesco Primaticcio, Ulysses and Penelope, c. 1560, Toledo Museum of Art (Toledo, Ohio). Purchased with the contribution of the Libbey Endowment, gift of Edward Drummond Libbey, 1964.60

The Music of the Merchant: Musical Life in and around the Venetian Ghetto from Shylock’s Era

From 24 al 30 July 2017, the Fondazione Giorgio Cini Institute of Theatre and Opera is hosting a workshop entitled The Music of the Merchant: Musical Life in and around the Venetian Ghetto from Shylock’s Era, held by the Lucidarium Ensemble. The workshop is the next stage in a large three-year project, Shakespeare in and beyond the Ghetto: staging Europe across cultures, chosen by the European Commission following a 2016 call for proposals for Creative Europe Culture Cooperation Projects. Besides Ca’ Foscari University, Venice, and the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, the international partners in the European project include the University of Warwick and Queen Mary University of London (England), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich (Germany), and the Teatrul Municipal Tony Bulandra, Targoviste (Romania).

The workshop will explore the colourful variety of repertoires that characterised the 16th-Century Venetian soundscape: dances and mascherate associated with Commedia dell’Arte and Carnival; Jewish songs in Yiddish, Italian and Spanish, borrowed from 16th-century sources; and liturgies, paraliturgies and piyyutim (liturgical chanted poems) from the Jewish oral tradition in Italy. In a week of intensive studies, there will be an analytical focus on the music that ordinary people listened to in their daily lives or during celebrations and festivities, and especially in the Ghetto. In addition to studying vocal, instrumental and mixed ensembles, the workshops will tackle the Jewish repertoire in sessions on singing and early percussion instruments. There will also be lessons on the lute, wind instruments, tambourines, percussions and the dulcimer. Another important area of study will concern how to study and perform music repertoires that have only survived in partial form.

The workshop is organized in collaboration with Haute école de musique, Genève, and is addressed to singers and instrumentalists interested in Jewish and Renaissance music.

The deadline for applications is 15 April 2017.

For further information:

teatromelodramma@cini.it

lucidarium@gmail.com

http://www.lucidarium.com/summer-course-music-of-the-merchant/

Workshop: Masks of Shylock

From 17 to 26 January 2017, the Teatrul Municipal Tony Bulandra, Targoviste, hosted Masks of Shylock, a workshop held by the theatre company Pantakin. The event continued and completed the work begun by Pantakin at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in November 2016, in the workshop entitled Shylock after Shylock – Shakespeare’s Masks.

The Romanian workshop was another stage in the large three-year project entitled Shakespeare in and beyond the Ghetto: staging Europe across cultures, chosen by the European Commission following a 2016 call for proposals for Creative Europe Culture Cooperation Projects. Besides Ca’ Foscari University, Venice, and the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, the international partners in the European project include the University of Warwick and Queen Mary University of London (England), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich (Germany), and the Teatrul Municipal Tony Bulandra, Targoviste (Romania).

The sixteen workshop participants were selected through a call for applications followed up by an audition. The analysis of movement and improvisation were the two main areas of study in the workshop. Starting from the discovery of the mask as an expressive instrument, the students explored actors’ movements in space and techniques of acting and stylization. The workshop enabled the participants to acquire expressive languages as the basis for building character improvisations.
The workshop was also part of the preparations of a production based on a re-interpretation of Shakespeare’s Andronicus Titus, due to be completed by September 2017. The first performance will be staged in October as part of the 2017-2018 season at the Teatrul Bulandra.

Dal ritratto all’icona. Il fascino di un’attrice attraverso la fotografia

Dal ritratto all’icona. Il fascino di un’attrice attraverso la fotografia
Edited by Marianna Zannoni
Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice, 2016
To accompany the Duse exhibition entitled From portrait to icon. The charm of an actress in photography, curated by Marianna Zannoni (Fondazione Giorgio Cini, 18 March 2016 – 31 March 2017), the Institute of Theatre and Opera has published the first catalogue in a series on temporary exhibitions staged in Eleonora Duse’s Room. The exhibition is dedicated to the rich photographic collection resource for reconstructing the history of actor portraits at the turn of 19th and 20th centuries. Through the selection of private portraits and pictures of Duse posing in stage costumes, the exhibition offers visitors the opportunity to explore images that contributed to making her such a celebrity and have preserved her memory to the present day.
This series of exhibition catalogues follows on from a volume published in 2013 describing
Duse’s Room with its invaluable Archive, and the life and work of the great diva.